"They'll want to ask questions. I think I can get them to send that lifeboat away. We can't fight that, Channy; it's a regular armed launch! Santis says you can always get the other side to split its forces, if you're smart about it."
"But how—"
"And then, when I yell 'Here we go!' then you pop out. That'll be the right moment—" She stood up suddenly. "We can't talk any more! They're getting close—" She vanished with that from before the mouth of the burrow.
"Hold on there!" a voice yelled in the distance a few seconds later, as Channok came crawling clumsily up the glassy floor of the tunnel, hampered by the Reaper he still clutched in one hand. It seemed to come from up in the air, and it was using the Empire's universal dialect.
Peer's footsteps stopped abruptly.
"Who you people?" her voice screeched in shrill alarm. "You cops? I ain't done nothing!"
VI
"And just look at those guns she's carrying!" the deeper of the two strange voices commented. "The real stuff, too—a stunner and an Ophto Needle! Better get them from her. If it isn't a baby Flauval!"
"I didn't shoot nobody lately!" Peer said, trembly-voiced.